(credits: Getty Images)
It is an excited and ever-awkward Mark Zuckerberg that opened
the f8, with the presentation of Timeline, Facebook's new
profile design.
"Timeline is the story of your life and it has three pieces: All
your stories, all your apps, and a new way to express who you are,"
Zuckerberg said. It will display recent updates, as well as past
events in the form of summaries.
The idea is that of a "scrapbook, but more comprehensive".
Timeline aims at helping the users to retrace the events of their
lives, by displaying recent updates and summarizing the events of
your life as you go further back in time, with a whole new
design.
The new aesthetics is what makes Timeline so special. It divides
Facebook into two columns, where photos, comments, videos, are
displayed to tell each user's life story, all the way down to the
day they were born. The profile picture will be pushed to the side
and the user will have to possibility to choose a background
picture.
A series of apps are currently being developped to maximize the
personalisation of the timeline.
You will also be able to retrospectively add photos specific to
a particular period, to make your timeline more comprehensive. The
current privacy settings will apply, with the possibility of
controlling who sees what.
The navigation through the profiles will be more user-friendly -
compared to the cumbersome current one-, with the possibility
offered to choose a particular period on the profile.
This new Facebook aesthetics should be available in a few weeks.
You can get a sneak peek of it here.
Facebook's founder also unveiled the expansion of its range of
apps, including music services, with a partnership with Spotify,
and the development of social news - a Washington Post social
reader was mentionned.
By extensively integrating new services, Facebook seems to be on
its way to become a self-sufficient platform, embracing every
aspect of the user's lifestyle, from music to cooking or fashion.
Google+, that was thought as a credible competitor to Facebook has
much to fear from this advanced redesign.